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Effects of Marijuana Legalization on Law Enforcement and Crime, Washington, 2004-2018

Metadata Updated: March 12, 2025

This study sought to examine the effects of cannabis legalization on crime and law enforcement in Washington State. In 2012 citizens voted to legalize possession of small amounts of cannabis, with the first licensed retail outlets opening on July 1, 2014. Researchers crafted their analysis around two questions. First, how are law enforcement agencies handling crime and offenders, particularly involving marijuana, before and after legalization? Second, what are the effects of marijuana legalization on crime, crime clearance, and other policing activities statewide, as well as in urban, rural, tribal, and border areas? Research participants and crime data were collected from 14 police organizations across Washington, as well as Idaho police organizations situated by the Washington-Idaho border where marijuana possession is illegal. Additional subjects were recruited from other police agencies across Washington, prosecutors, and officials from the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board, and the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators for focus groups and individual interviews. Variables included dates of calls for service from 2004 through 2018, circumstances surrounding calls for service, geographic beats, agency, whether calls were dispatch or officer initiated, and whether the agency was in a jurisdiction with legal cannabis.

Access & Use Information

Restricted: This dataset can only be accessed or used under certain conditions. License: us-pd

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date February 13, 2023
Metadata Updated Date March 12, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOJ JSON

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date February 13, 2023
Metadata Updated Date March 12, 2025
Publisher National Institute of Justice
Maintainer
Identifier 4230
Data First Published 2021-04-29T13:54:13
Language eng
Data Last Modified 2021-04-29T13:57:20
Rights These data are restricted due to the increased risk of violation of confidentiality of respondent and subject data.
Public Access Level restricted public
Aicategory Not AI-ready
Bureau Code 011:21
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://www.justice.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id db51820c-9175-4242-b698-5269a49b9e75
Harvest Source Id 3290e90a-116f-42fc-86ac-e65521ef3b68
Harvest Source Title DOJ JSON
Internalcontactpoint {"@type": "vcard:Contact", "fn": "Jennifer Scherer", "hasEmail": "mailto:Jennifer.Scherer@usdoj.gov"}
Jcamsystem {"acronym": "OJP_EXT", "id": 8, "name": "External system not available in CSAM"}
License http://www.usa.gov/publicdomain/label/1.0/
Metadatamodified 9/2/2022 6:22:00 PM
Program Code 011:060
Publisher Hierarchy Office of Justice Programs > National Institute of Justice
Sourceidentifier https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37661
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 7eb4ec39098294232cb7871999adc0a2a767a40a164befa2a13f063d1717a7fb
Source Schema Version 1.1

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